Other - What do you guys think about this plumbob fountain that I had created in Blender?

What do you guys think about this plumbob fountain that I had created in Blender?

I was messing around with Blender and I was able to create this fountain with the plumbob at the top as my first real Blender project,thanks to the help of Blender Guru's Youtube videos and i'm wondering what your thoughts about are because I personally think it needs some improvements? To me it looks like a plumbob trophy sitting on top of a stand rather than an actual fountain. I apologize if I couldn't get a good view of the object in Blender,i'm still a beginner at it and I haven't quite a hang to the complex but yet simple controls of it.

It would look great as the neighborhood decoration, but as a gameplay object, it would need a lot of work.

The greatest problem I see is the flat edges... no object has a twodimensional edge. Second problem I see is shading. Easily fixable with putting it on smooth shading and splitting edges where you want them. However, before splitting edges you would need to UV unwrap the mesh, and make the UV map.

And ofcourse, the most complex thing would be texturing, which would require knowledge of materials, shading and proper use of photo-editing programs such is photoshop (though I use Paint.NET which is a free alternative).

Also, importing that into game would be quite bothersome via SimPE. I've been there and it was a messy road.

It would look great as the neighborhood decoration, but as a gameplay object, it would need a lot of work.

The greatest problem I see is the flat edges... no object has a twodimensional edge. Second problem I see is shading. Easily fixable with putting it on smooth shading and splitting edges where you want them. However, before splitting edges you would need to UV unwrap the mesh, and make the UV map.

And ofcourse, the most complex thing would be texturing, which would require knowledge of materials, shading and proper use of photo-editing programs such is photoshop (though I use Paint.NET which is a free alternative).

Also, importing that into game would be quite bothersome via SimPE. I've been there and it was a messy road.

Yeah like I said this is my first real Blender project so i'm very aware that the model needs a lot of fixing up to do and one of are learning how to make a model look less flat. Learning how to UV Unwrap,texture and making it work in SimPE and the game are last things on my mind. Thank you for the feedback.

Looks nice, yeah like what mixa97sr said it be more suitable for neighbor mode and I know you said that you just made a mesh but I really want to see it textured!

If you think that looks nice take a look at my new and improved version. All I did was remove and redone some of the parts until i'm satisfied with the results. It still needs some work done but what what do you think about it? Do you think that I should add more basins to it?

If you think that looks nice to take a look at my new and improved version. All I did was remove and redone some of the parts until satisfied with the results. It still needs some work done but what-what do you think about it? Do you think that I should add more basins to it?

Whoa, I didn't realize that I had set the viewport that high. Here's the updated picture. It's still a bit high though. Thanks to Blender's Guru's Youtube tutorials, I know more about 3d modeling and polygons now but I still have a long way to go before I would start to get good at this.

To me, and this might be an entirely personal point of view, the proportions look wrong. The main issue is the thing in the bowl (not sure what you'd call it) which seems too large compared to both the size of the bowl and the pedestal - it's around 2/3rds the height of the pedestal and rather thick. Also the pedestal is also quite thick and seemingly rather high. While the bowl itself is more delicate in scale - it looks like it's been stuck on from another object tbh. I'm not sure that would work in neighbourhood view though I guess it would depend on the scale you used.

To me, and this might be an entirely personal point of view, the proportions look wrong. The main issue is the thing in the bowl (not sure what you'd call it) which seems too large compared to both the size of the bowl and the pedestal - it's around 2/3rds the height of the pedestal and rather thick. Also the pedestal is also quite thick and seemingly rather high. While the bowl itself is more delicate in scale - it looks like it's been stuck on from another object tbh. I'm not sure that would work in neighbourhood view though I guess it would depend on the scale you used.

Thanks for the feedback. What do you think about the changes that I had made this time?

The basin seems a little small to me, too, but I'm imagining it as a fountain where water comes out the top. In that case, it would either have quite a large arc shooting up from that height, or it would be dribbling down, but either way doesn't there need to be a pretty large basin at the bottom to hold all the water that will be pumped back up? Such a thing is also pretty heavy IRL, so we expect a pretty substantial pedestal. Even a desktop fountain usually has a pretty weighty bottom. I actually think the original low poly one is closer to the right proportions and looks more like a plumbbob.
Good luck. Always fun to learn some new skills.

#11 6th May 2018 at 11:44 PM
Last edited by Squidconqueror : 7th May 2018 at 12:05 AM.

Posts: 907

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sunrader

The basin seems a little small to me, too, but I'm imagining it as a fountain where water comes out the top. In that case, it would either have quite a large arc shooting up from that height, or it would be dribbling down, but either way doesn't there need to be a pretty large basin at the bottom to hold all the water that will be pumped back up? Such a thing is also pretty heavy IRL, so we expect a pretty substantial pedestal. Even a desktop fountain usually has a pretty weighty bottom. I actually think the original low poly one is closer to the right proportions and looks more like a plumbbob.
Good luck. Always fun to learn some new skills.

Could you give me a reference? It's difficult for me to visual what you meant because I don't see water fountains over in my area and about the plumbob I tried to select it in Blender and make it like the original but it just makes the the whole model look blocky and rough again which doesn't look appealing to me. What I would do since you like the lower polygon version better I'll remove the plumbob from the vase,make a lower polygon version and attach that to the top of the vase.

The pedestal and upper basin are small, just like yours, but there's a large-ish basin below. Having a fountain just standing on a relatively small area would make me scared about tipping it over due to the weight being distributed at the top only.

I'm not a mesher, so I fear this may not be helpful, but I really like the delicate, shallow basin shape of your third attempt. What do you think about using the plumbob as the pedestal itself, with the small connector piece shown in your first version pic on the top as well as the bottom (to attach to the basin), or even split the plumbob on the middle plane, invert it, and have a symmetrical pedestal? Also, in my opinion, you need the sharp facets of your first attempt for the plumbob to look like a plumbob. Although necessary for the other elements of the object, smoothing the plumbob itself makes a pretty shape, but it loses the essential character of the icon.

I hope you get it done. I'd love to see this object one tile and about end table height; it would make a charming birdbath.

I like the shallow look as well... it reminds me of TS4 shallow fountain. But the pillar that holds it looks a bit bare and too weak. You can look at TS4 shallow fountain as a refference if you decide to keep it like that.